Jane Eyre: The Paths of Life

Harsh institutions provide the rough circumstances needed to refine an individual’s character. Lowood Boarding School contains the experience needed to produce positive refinement in its inhabitants. As Jane Eyre studies at Lowood, extreme physical deprivation confronts her. “Despite terrible deprivation, however, Jane is given something at Lowood gar more prescious than the food and clothing she had at Gateshead: a sense of her own worth”(Berg 44). Living in a “crowded schoolroom and dormitory” with clothing “insufficient to protect [them] from the severe cold” adds to the “semi-starvation and neglected colds” that torture the students (Brontë 69,52). These harsh conditions force Jane either to withstand the institutional exper

iences or to give up and die with many of her classmates. All of the seemingly negative suffering Jane endures at Lowood, however, creates a positive development in her character because she learns to persevere. Jane realizes she can live without the luxury of her own bedroom, the comfort of all the layers of clothing imaginable, and as much food as she desires because her survival proves it. She actually lives through the cold weather, the periods of starving and sickness, and she even decides to stay beyond her schooling years to become a teacher. The inability to indulge herself at Lowood instills within Jane’s character the will to persevere through harsh circumstances.

Some environments create atmospheres that allow situations to occur that cannot possibly happen anywhere else. As harsh institutions serve to polish the rough edges of a character, other places can create ideal conditions for the occurrence of events that also refine a character. Such a place appears in Brontë’s novel; the secluded Thornfield Hall creates an environment that makes the formation of true love inevitable and, thereby, positively develops Jane’s character. Jane moves to Thornfield to privately tutor a young girl living there after leaving Lowood. As an orphan, Jane starves for affection all her life, but when she meets the master of the manor, she finally gets a taste of true love. She spends more and more time with Mr. Rochester. “Jane delights in his attention and is stimulated by the challenge offers when he indulges in Byronic philosophizing which she firmly argues against”(Blom 90). In the private and romantic atmosphere of the house, she realizes that “not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than [she] was loved”(Brontë 300). In effect, living at Thornfield transforms Jane into a new creature; at this house, the realization that someone loves her builds her self-confidence, raises her self-image, and actually has an effect on her outer appearance. Her face “no longer [seems] plain,” and her whole demeanor changes from the frail and sallow girl of Lowood to that of a healthy, invigorated physique (Brontë 244). Under different circumstances, and had she moved somewhere else, Jane would never have met Mr. Rochester; and even then, the love between members of different social classes, a repudiated event in society, has little chance of developing in a big city because Mr. Rochester will, no doubt, always come and go to travel about for business. Thornfield Hall creates the conditions necessary to kindle to love between Jane and Mr. Rochester and, therefore, positively develops strength in Jane’s character.

The same surroundings also allow St. John Rivers to grow spiritually because his family nurtures his ability and desire to increase his knowledge

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